The Stockholm stock exchange halted trade in kidney-care company Gambro on Monday amid speculation that the Swedish firm might be on the verge of selling its dialysis operations in a $3 billion deal. The Stockholm bourse said the stock would remain suspended until further information is released, which the exchange said would be later this week.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the California-based DaVita was close to buying Gambro's dialysis operations which generated some 60 percent of Gambro's 2003 sales of 26.1 billion Swedish crowns ($3.88 billion).
"Trading in the Gambro shares has been suspended ... due to the rumours in the market stemming from an article published in today's issue of Wall Street Journal," Gambro said in a statement.
"It is the company's policy to not comment on rumours. At this moment the company has no further comments," it said.
The dialysis unit has an 18 percent core earnings profit margin. With a market capitalisation of $4.6 billion, Gambro is the world's number two dialysis provider, after Germany's Fresenius Medical Care, and has more than 55,000 patients in more than 700 clinics world-wide. DaVita also provides dialysis services.
Gambro also develops and supplies haemodialysis products and services. Last week it sold its marine cargo business for 1.65 billion crowns to Kone, a Finnish lift maker.
The WSJ report, quoting sources familiar with the matter, said negotiations on the sale were ongoing and that a completed deal could be announced later this week.
But the deal might still not happen and would be scrutinised by US antitrust bodies, it wrote.
"It's not completely unlikely. DaVita wants to become bigger," an analyst who did not want to be named said.
"This has been stewing below the surface for a while, but as long as the subpoena wasn't concluded, a potential deal was out of the question."
The Swedish company said last week it had reached a final settlement with US authorities over a compliance probe launched in 2001.
Before the trade was halted, Gambro's A-shares were up 3 percent at 92.5 Swedish crowns ($13.76), while its B-shares were 2.9 percent higher at 89.5 crowns. The A-shares have outperformed the DJ Stoxx Healthcare index by 56 percent so far this year.